ROME  The Italian Cabinet appears
certain to be reshuffled and the government could fall in the
wake of revelation that several prominent politicians belong
to a secret Masonic lodge, parliamentary sources said Friday.
The membership list of the P-2 Lodge
was published Thursday by order of Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani,
and among the 963 people named were two Cabinet ministers, 30
members of Parliament, the leader of a government party, the
chief of the defense staff and the heads of the secret service.
Lodge brothers included Michele Sindona,
serving 25 years in jail in the United States in connection with
the collapse of his banking empire, and Roberto Calvi and Paolo
Bonomi, two Milan financiers arrested this week for fraud.
All members swore loyalty to Licio Gelli,
the lodge's grand master who fled abroad during investigations
into allegations he was involved in a gasoline fraud scandal
last year that is said to have cost the government up to $2 billion.
"Membership of the party and adherence
to the Freemasons cannot be other than incompatible," said
Flaminio Piccoli, secretary of the Christian Democrats, which
head the four-party governing coalition.
Another coalition party, the Social Democrats,
whose leader Pietro Longo was on the Masonic list, took a more
relaxed view. But the small Republican Party regards the matter
with alarm.
"The P-2 Lodge, ostensibly a Masonic
organization, in reality seems to have been a center of hidden
and corrupt power . . .," party secretary Giovanni Spadolini
said.
The Socialists, without whom the government
cannot survive, have not declared their position. President Sandro
Pertini has demanded that the government clarify the whole issue.